


Merry Christmas

by publius_ham



Category: American Revolution RPF, Historical RPF
Genre: First Time, Kissing, M/M, it is the 18th century folks :'), mentions of internalized homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 13:05:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13167525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/publius_ham/pseuds/publius_ham
Summary: He looked like a vision, something from out of a dream, and it took all my strength not to immediately jump towards him and ravish him. I’d never been able to control myself when emotions ran high.He was so beautiful.And he was all mine.“Good evening, Hamilton,” Laurens said, happiness evident in his tone.





	Merry Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to my Jack. 
> 
> Tu es l'amour de ma vie. <3

I had never been a big lover of Christmas.

The very first celebration I remember was the one without my mother, with James there, sitting around a tiny pile of books, the only leftovers we had from the life before. Our cousin had been absent – probably celebrating with his lover and child. It had been just James and I, no big feast, no candlelight, no songs to lighten the mood. We went to bed hungry without saying a word to each other as neither of us were big fans of feigning happiness when all we felt was dread for the future.

The Christmas of 1777 seemed to be no different.

I’d woken up hungry, downed down some watered bread with coffee – blurry black water that had lost its taste weeks ago and was a sorry excuse for coffee – and gotten to work silently. I had been the first to rise, which was not unusual, but the quietness with which the other aides slowly joined me was. The usual jests of Meade were absent, as was Laurens’ happy “good morning” to me. They all knew that the upcoming holidays were going to be unlike any of them had ever experienced. There would be no hunt for good meat. There would be no mothers chiding them that they’d gotten so thin and needed more fat, no happy families joining in and filling their big mansions to the brink.

At least I’d grown used to a bleak Christmas.

“Good morning,” came from the doorway, and we all scrambled to our feet in a hasty salute. Contrary to the others, the General was smiling and looked to be in a good mood. “Happy Christmas.”

 " Merry Christmas,” we all replied, one with more enthusiasm than the other. Laurens shot me a look at my deadened tone. I tried not to smile – failing miserably in doing so.

(I never quite succeeded in concealing my happiness upon seeing him. He did have a tight hold on my heart. Lafayette had once warned me my tendency to fall in love hard and fast was going to kill me one day – but I knew Laurens would be worth the downfall. He was worth everything.)

“At ease,” the General then said, and we all slid down into our seats again.

I picked up my quill to continue translating, but paused. Everyone around me had gotten back to work immediately – Meade with his tongue stuck out slightly, Laurens with his brows knotted together like he always had whenever he was trying to understand someone’s difficult handwriting. It was probably von Steuben’s. I’d gotten lost trying to decipher his handwriting more than once.

I’d met Laurens just a little more than four months ago yet it felt like I’d known him my entire life. He’d taken over the entire military family with ease, his smile and handsome face charming officers and militiamen alike, and even Washington had taken a liking to him, hiring him as an aide just after a month of meeting him. (He would have hired Laurens sooner had it been proper.)

I should not feel the way for him the way that I did. I should not stare at him while I was supposed to be working, should not feel my heart fluttering in my chest whenever he sighed in exasperation, should not bite down a smile when he cursed under his breath when he almost knocked over an ink bottle.

For all I knew, he only saw me as a fling.

He kissed me first a month after our meeting. We had been drunk, drinking away the cold and our misery with horrible wine, talking alone in the woods behind the cottage we were staying in. He had been staring at me, his lips red and his cheeks flushed. I’d never seen him look more beautiful, nor more vulnerable, and I had kissed him right  _ there _ .

I’d expected him to push me away.

Call me a backgammon player.     

A sodomite.

Expected him to never look me in the eye again.

Instead he’d  _ attacked _ , heaved me up and against a tree, kissed me back like he’d been starving all his life and had just been given access to a never-ending banquet. Like he might die if we stopped. His hands had been like fire, grabbing me so tight it would leave bruises.

Possessive.

I didn’t mind in the slightest.

Since then it had been three months of stolen kisses in empty corridors, fleeting touches before anyone else entered a room, whispers of flirtations whenever we thought we wouldn’t be heard. Nothing more – yet, maybe – for we were always surrounded. Not even sleeping alone was a possibility. I didn’t share a bed with him and I couldn’t ask my bedmate to trade with him without arousing suspicion. We were already testing our luck as it was, and however much my heart was gone for him, I could not risk either his honor nor his life for just me.

I’d always –

“Hammy,” someone suddenly said, and I jumped, nearly snapping my quill in two.

“Yes?”

Harrison was grinning at me. “Have you slept at all?”

I furrowed my brows. “Yes? Why?”

" You just started dozing open-eyed.” He pointed to the corner of my mouth. “And did you drool?”

I quickly wiped my mouth – but there was nothing. “Very funny, Harrison,” I muttered, ignoring everyone stifling down their laughter around us. “You should quit your job and become an entertainer. The world lost an incredibly talented soul when you joined the army.”

“Did you think of Kitty, perhaps?” He went on, pushing. Meade had stopped working to listen, as had Laurens. “Or some other lady you’ve won over?”

“Really, now,” I said, trying not to blush. Oh, what he would say had he known who had really taken a hold on my heart. It took every ounce of strength I had not to look at Laurens. “Is that the best jest you’ve got?”

“Honestly,” Meade interrupted finally, “don’t start a war. We have enough on our hands from the one already going on, yes?”

“Yes, sir.” We both echoed, grinning.

I grabbed my quill a little tighter, slowly put it in the inkpot, waved it around a bit so Meade would see – he laughed – and I set it down to paper again to continue the work I’d so idly let myself be distracted from.

Laurens was staring at me. I saw him from the corner of my eye.

Today would be a very long day.

 

 

That afternoon I was trudging through the snow, my new coat tucked under my arm.

My scholarship allowance was dwindling fast as the war continued, and I would not be able to afford luxuries such as new clothing throughout the entire war. Yet the Pennsylvanian winter had been merciless – and Laurens’ fretting about my health even more so – and I’d finally saved up enough to order a new coat. Its colour was bright and looked new, the fabric thick and warm. I couldn’t wait to finally put it on and give my old one, which was infested with holes and thinned spots, to someone who had desperate need of it.

And Providence knew the poor souls at this camp needed every scrap of fabric they could get their hands on.

I had lived through hell.

I had seen his mother die and be taken away from my shaking grasp when I was just twelve years old, seen my cousin lying dead in a bed stained with blood, and then the devastating hurricane that had wrecked my entire world. I’d been standing on the beach afterwards, staring at dead bodies of people I’d known all my life floating in pools of water, lifeless  _ things  _ rocking with the waves. I’d been on board of a ship in the middle of the ocean when it caught fire, unsure if it was a curse of god following me, unsure whether I’d ever make it to the shore.

My life had been a series of unfortunate events.

But nothing quite resembled the living hellhole that was the encampment of the continental army in Valley Forge.

Food was scarce – some men hadn’t eaten a proper meal in days and I couldn’t even remember when I last ate meat – as was clothing. Men were walking around in the snow barefoot, their feet blue and black, trudging forward as if they couldn’t even feel their limbs rotting anymore. Coats were torn and discoloured, hats were infrequent and unmatching, and even if people had boots it was rare to find good ones. General Washington had always complained about the lack of uniformity within the army from lack of uniforms – he had never quite grasped the necessity for clothing in general until the coldest winter they’d ever seen had crept up upon the army.

Huts had been built all over but they were barely able to withstand the cold gushes of the wind, let alone the dangerously low temperatures creeping up on everyone during their sleep. I didn’t much like the little cot I was forced to share with Harrison, another aide-de-camp of Washington in the little house of Isaac Potts, but I figured I should thank every divinity I knew for having at least the comfort of a bricked house, a hearth, and a proper roof over my own head.

“Hammy!” a voice suddenly called, and I looked up, my gloomy thoughts thankfully – if temporarily – interrupted. John Laurens was half-running, half-sliding towards me with a boyish smile on his features. “You’re needed at headquarters.”

“And that is need for such joy, Laurens?” I asked, though I immediately walked with Laurens. I was needed, so I went. “Did the shipment of wine arrive early or –”

Laurens quickly shut me off by gently nudging me in the side. “Don’t talk about alcohol too loudly or you’ll start a riot. The way you hear the men speak about it – it’s like they’re this close to ripping each other apart for just one drop.”

“I did, contrary to popular belief, I am not deaf.” I smiled. Couldn’t help it, Laurens, with his easy smile and playful manner around him made it impossible not to do so. “Yet you did not answer my question. Why are you so happy?”

“Oh, I’m not.” Laurens skipped over a branch, almost pulling me down to the ground when he stumbled on his step. “I have just taken the Marquis’ advice to heart, that to achieve happiness, one has to – and I am quoting here – ‘act as though one has already achieved the great tranquillity of utmost happiness, until the acting becomes so easy it is no longer necessary to do so’.”

“You’re lying to yourself, then.” I scoffed. “You know how much I value honesty –”

“Oh, I do, Hamilton, don’t worry.” Laurens’ grin was something wicked. “You wouldn’t let us forget. And it’s not lying, it’s  _ acting. _ ”

“Those are synonyms.”

“They’re not.”

“As far as I’m aware, they are.”

Laurens linked his arm through mine, as though we did that all the time. I would like to blame the sudden heat rising to my cheeks on the cold – but I knew very well it wasn’t that. Laurens always did things to me, things that made my heart flutter wild like a trapped bird in my chest, and I never really could quite figure out what it was. “They’re not, my dear boy, and we could argue about this all day if we would not freeze to death if we did so.”

So we walked on silently.

Laurens did not let go of my arm, and I didn’t pull away.

My friend smelled nice – warm, as if he’d been sitting by the fire. It distracted me from the misery around us, of the dark skies above them foreboding another snowstorm to come, of the bloody footprints in the snow in front of us made by someone dying – or already dead. It was easier to focus on the steady presence of Laurens’ arm in mine, on Laurens’ breathing next to me, on our steps synchronising on the crisp snow.

“It’s not just lying,” Laurens said after a while, his voice softer and more serious. “This whole thing, this winter… it’s going to kill us long before the redcoats can get a chance. We need some way to stay focused on something else than the reality we’re living in, and if acting is the way to do so, Providence be damned, I’ll do it.”

“Laurens –” I did not know what to say.

Yet my Laurens seemed to know nonetheless and he grinned again. “Don’t worry, you can stay your gloomy charming self.” I let out a surprised laugh – something not many people could make me do. “I wouldn’t want you any other way.”

“Watch it, my dear,” I grinned back, “you’d almost think you just paid me a compliment.”

“Maybe I did.”

I turned to look at my friend – Laurens looked far too serious to have been jesting. Before I could open my mouth, however, to fight or kiss him, I wasn’t sure yet – we’d arrived at Isaac Potts’ house, and Laurens quickly let go and moved away.

“Happy Christmas, Hamilton,” Laurens said, turning on his heels, and he walked away before I could utter a reply.

I didn’t follow him – the General was waiting for me, and Heaven knew about his infamous temper when it came to subordinates’ tardiness. So I shook it off instead, tried to expel Laurens from my mind, and stepped into the house with a determined look on my features.

Valley Forge might be hell on earth, but as long as there was work to be done, it was bearable. I could throw himself into it head-first, ignoring the suffering and pain around me to get done what needed to be done to ease it.

Though, I mused, entering General Washington’s study after a quick, ‘Your Excellency’, having John Laurens as a lover did tend to ease the ordeal a thousand fold.

 

 

The day passed by without much happening.

I wrote, read, wrote some more, wrote another letter… and wrote some more. I had a few meetings with the General and Lafayette, but they were mostly about getting supplies from Congress to get through the coming winter - which did not exactly improve my mood. Most of the meeting had been Lafayette’s indignant half-English, half-French cries dripping with his unwillingness to confiscate supplies from surrounding farms, and Washington’s unbounding resolution to do it anyway. Morals were a nice thing to have, I mused, and Lafayette was perhaps the most gallant knight I’d ever had the good fortune of knowing. But we wouldn’t survive the winter with gallantry, however much the Marquis might wish it.

All in all, the day had been tedious, slow, and bleak.

The highlight of my day had been my walk with Laurens and even that had been too short for my tastes. 

“Coffee,” came from my right, and I turned in the hallway. I’d been standing there idly, not sure whether I’d wanted to get back to writing or join the other aides during dinner. It seemed I was interrupted before I decide. Next to me, leaning against the doorway like some Roman God was John Laurens, his hand outstretched with a steaming mug. “Just the way you like it.”

“Ah,” I said thankfully, taking it from him. It slightly burned my fingers, but I welcomed the change. They had been freezing. “Watered-down and bitter. Thank you.”

He barked out a laugh, and pushed himself off the doorframe. I almost leaned upwards to kiss him. “As honest as ever, I see.”

“Did you expect anything else?”

“No.” He grinned. He looked so beautiful. Carved out of marble. Mine. “I’d be disappointed if you weren’t.”

I grinned back, and set off towards the dining hall. Or well, it was more a dining  _ room  _ then a hall; it could barely hold all the aides without it feeling like the walls might collapse on all of us, let alone how swamped it was when the General would join us. It’s why for the first few days at camp here I’d waited until everyone was done before swooping in and eating whatever was left - much to the chagrin of the cook, who had to wait all the longer before being able to clean up. (Her daughter didn’t mind much, I thought, judging by the redness of her cheeks and the amount of cutlery she dropped whenever I shot a smile in her direction. I shouldn’t enjoy that as much as I did.)

But I had to get Laurens food, so I went.

He followed me immediately.

“So good of you to join us,” Harrison immediately called as soon as we entered the room. “And dear Providence, Laurens, you managed to bring our little lion with you, too! What a wonder!”

“Thank you, Harrison,” I grumbled, taking an empty seat beside Lafayette. Laurens sat down on the other side of the table.

Lafayette handed me a plate of something wet. It must’ve been soup, but I wasn’t sure. “ _ Puis-je vous tenter avec  une plaque de boue? _ ”

I snorted - as did some of the other aides - and I took it anyway. “ _ Merci, Lafayette,” _ I went on, grinning lightly, “ _ c’est mieux que rien, non? _ ”

He laughed. “ _ Oui, c’est vrai! Je pense -” _

“English, please,” Meade groaned, “I’ve had enough of the French language to bear through it during dinner. If you could refrain from doing so, you’d spare me a headache and yourself a handful of porridge in your face.”

“Is that a threat, Meade?” Laurens joined in. He also didn’t look particularly happy with the food, but he was eating it anyway. “As your current partner in bed I’d suggest you’d be careful throwing those around - I might just start talking in my sleep as revenge.”

“Oh, god, don’t start,” Harrison groaned, pointing towards me with his spoon. “ _ That _ man talks even more  _ in  _ his sleep than out of it. I am this close to sleeping with candle wax stuffed in my ear to withhold myself from throttling him in my sleep.”

“Oh, yes, I remember,” Meade said, “his chatting had kept me up two nights in a row. How do you live?”

“I do not!” Harrison complained. “I’ve been running on coffee for a week!”

Before I could retort something - surely I wasn’t that bad - Laurens laughed heartily and said; “Well, did we all expect anything less of our Hamilton?”

It was quiet for a while. Then came grunts of agreement and affirmative shrugs around me. I opened my mouth to fight them all, then realized that, oh, maybe that’d prove their point. So I stayed seated, and angrily ate my disgustingly bleak porridge with probably more force than necessary. 

“Laurens is the opposite,” Meade suddenly said after a while, “he is so out of it, he’d be able to sleep through one of the General’s tirades without moving a muscle. He’d be the only one able to sleep through Hamilton’s incessant chatter.”

“Then maybe  _ he  _ should sleep in my cot, then,” I snapped, unable to hold back anymore, “so we can cease this needless jesting about my sleeping patterns and eat - whatever this is.”

It was quiet again.

Laurens was staring at me, wide-eyed, as if he couldn’t quite believe me. 

I couldn’t believe myself, either, and for a second I was scared. Had I gone too far? Would they now know that we were lovers? Would they see through my annoyance and see the unbiblical desire there? Maybe they’d chuck me out. Laugh in my face. Or -

“That’s actually a great idea,” Meade said, a smile on his face. “No offense, Laurens.”

“None taken.” Laurens was smiling too. Almost tearing at the edges, as if the sun was breaking through.

Harrison nodded seriously. “It might solve the issue. I agree. Let’s switch.”

“That’s settled then,” Lafayette said, tapping his plate. “Now let poor Hamilton eat his dinner in peace.”

_ Thank god for Lafayette,  _ I thought, smiling back at Laurens. I didn’t dare to say anything, lest my utter and complete delirious joy would show.  _ We are going to sleep in one bed.  _ It might not give us privacy but it’s better than before. No more snoring Harrison. No more of the forlorn glances we’d shoot at each other before Laurens had to go to his room and I to mine. 

_ I can hold him close to my chest tonight.  _

_ He will be all mine. _

This might be a merry Christmas, after all.

 

 

Time went by so slowly I suspected Kronos was meddling with it on purpose to rile me up. Maybe he wanted revenge for all the times I’d laughed at him as a kid for his faith in the Greek stories. (It had made me feel marginally better about my own faith.) After dinner all I wanted was to go to bed immediately - Laurens and me alone! All night! - but of course duty called. Washington wanted me and Lafayette to join him in his drawing room to discuss the coming winter, to see what would needed to be done after only being here at camp for a few days. Were all of us prepared? 

Laurens had joined the rest of the aides to finish up our paperwork; without Lafayette and me there, and Tilghman send on another mission, most of the translating was left to him.

It was closing on midnight by the time I was finally released from work.

I almost went upstairs to the attic before I remember with a startling realization that I didn’t sleep there anymore. Halfway on the stairs I turned, my smile so wide it hurt, tiredness forgotten, and I nearly skipped towards the other room. We wouldn’t be alone there - Tilghman frequently slept there, as did Lafayette. But seeing as they were still out, and maybe out all night, I prayed to every deity I could remember that please, even for a little while, let us have some privacy. Just a few minutes. Some precious seconds so I could do what I wanted most; kiss him like he deserved to be kissed.

The door creaked when I opened it. 

Everything didn’t matter anymore; the cold, the foul smell of the army just outside, nor the tiredness in my bones dragging me down. All that mattered was my love, my dear Laurens, smiling at me when he saw me enter the room. 

Apparently the gods had heard my prayer for we were alone and he was sitting on his bed with only his breeches on, his skin almost glistening in the candlelight. He looked like a vision, something from out of a dream, and it took all my strength not to immediately jump towards him and ravish him. I’d never been able to control myself when emotions ran high. 

He was so beautiful. 

And he was all mine.

“Good evening, Hamilton,” Laurens said, happiness evident in his tone.

I quickly closed the door behind me. I felt almost giddy. “Alexander,” I corrected him, “I think you’ve earned that right by now - we  _ are  _ to share a bed. And you’d think that after all we did -”

“Alexander, then,” he interrupted me, and patted on the bed next to him. “My dear boy. Now come here.” 

I almost ran towards him, jumping on the bed. He laughed at my enthusiasm and immediately put his arm around me. As if it was as easy as breathing. He looked more put-together than I did, and he was the one who was half-naked. Something inside me wanted to be angry about it, but how could I, this was  _ Laurens, _ I could never be mad at him. 

He tucked a curl who’d broken loose from my cue behind my ear. He looked at me like he always did, with something unspeakable in his eyes, something powerful, too much to handle. Normally I’d shy away from it, tell him to stop staring at me. Now, however, in our sacred moments of complete privacy, I stared back. Almost defiant. 

I couldn’t believe this divine creature was in my bed, that he was so close, that he was mine. 

“Alexander,” he repeated, slowly, his smile so bright I almost looked away. He was so beautiful. “Can I kiss you?”

I laughed, tilting my chin up. “I might have to kill you if you don’t.”

He kissed like he did everything in his life; with such a fervor it burned down everything in his path. His hands were on me in an instant, touching me everywhere - my back, my chest, my sides, my bum - I couldn’t get enough of him. Everywhere he touched me lightning struck, sizzling its way to my heart, lighting up my inside like fireworks. I couldn’t get close enough. 

His lips were warm and furious against mine, devouring me. 

I wanted to be drowned in him.

“Alexander _ , _ ” he murmured, pushing me down to the bed, pulling off my cravat. His teeth were on my skin, my nails on his. “Alex _ ander, _ ” he repeated, pulling off my jacket, my shirt, throwing them on the floor. I didn’t care. “My dear boy,” he promised me, kissing, licking, biting down a trail from my chest to my stomach, his hands on my breeches. 

“God, Laurens,” I breathed, arching my back into him. I could live on this - just me and him, forever on this tiny bed. Forget fortune and fame and eternal glory; this would be enough. 

“John,” he corrected, grinning up at me.

“ _ Jack _ ,” I countered with a grin, pulling him up so I could kiss the confusion from his face. Feel him melt under my touch. 

He pulled back slightly. His hair was a mess, his lips red and swollen, his chest was covered in marks. I mustn’t have looked much better, but judging by his wide smile he didn’t seem to mind. “Yours,” he said, whispered, trailing the blue and purple marks he’d left on my everything. 

“Mine.” I tilted my head up again. “Now kiss me like you mean it.”

I knew we didn’t have all night. Lafayette might be back any minute, and Tilghman might return from his task sooner than expected. I couldn’t help but take more and more and more, though, taking everything my Jack could give me. His kisses were my stars, without whom I’d be blind. His touch was my oxygen, without whom I’d choke. He made my mind soar with embarrassing poetry and I found I didn’t mind in the slightest.

“I love you,” I suddenly blurted against his lips, tightening my grip on his arms.

He froze, eyes open wide. He didn’t move away.

I could see every blue and green speck in his eyes like this. 

“I  _ love  _ you,” I repeated, quicker this time, more in awe with my own declaration. I hadn’t known I cared so much for him, had never even thought it. But now that I said it I knew I’d never been more candid in my life. John Lauren had claimed my heart without me even knowing, written his name with ink all over it.

“Oh,” Laurens smiled so wide. I could almost taste his happiness. “You are… my God.” He shook his head. “ _ Tu es l’amour de ma vie _ ,  _ Alexandre _ .”

My heart skipped a beat. I smiled back, kissed him shortly. Hard. “Merry Christmas, Jack.”

He kissed me again. Cradled me close, fitting us together like puzzle pieces, like we were meant to be like this together. “Merry Christmas, Alex,” he whispered back.

We might have limited time.

We were in the middle of a war, after all, that might claim our lives tomorrow.

This might be a crime against God. Punishable by the law.

But like this, trapped underneath his body and his  _ love _ , I knew I had never been happier in my entire life. And I would probably never be again.

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> French translations;  
> Puis-je vous tender avec une plaque de boue? = “Can I interest you in a plate with mud?”  
> Merci, Lafayette, c’est mieux que rien, non? = “Thank you, Lafayette, it is better than nothing, non?”  
> Oui, c’est vrai! Je pense - = “Yes, that’s true! I think -”  
> Tu es l’amour de ma vie, Alexandre = “You are the love of my life, Alexander”


End file.
